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    <title>Eggdrop Documentation: Starting Out</title>
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      <p><strong>Starting Out</strong></p>
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    <hr>

    <p>Obviously the first thing you want to do is compile the bot. The
    README file tells you what to do and answers some frequently-asked
    questions about compiling. If you&#39;re in a rush and you know what
    you&#39;re doing, you don&#39;t have to read this at all -- the README
    file tells you how to quickly compile and start up the bot.</p>

    <p>If you&#39;ve read this far, then, I&#39;ll assume you have
    successfully compiled Eggdrop and edited the config file.</p>

    <p>First of all, Eggdrop has some command-line options -- not many,
    because most things should be defined through the config file. However
    sometimes you may want to start up the bot in a different mode, and the
    command-line options let you do that. Basically, the command line for
    Eggdrop is:</p>

    <blockquote>
      <p><em>% eggdrop &lt;options&gt; &lt;config-file&gt;</em></p>
    </blockquote>

    <p>The options available are:</p>

    <blockquote>
      <dl>
        <dt><strong>-n</strong></dt>

        <dd>
          <p>Don&#39;t background. Normally Eggdrop will move itself into the
          background when you start it up, meaning you&#39;ll get another
          shell prompt and you can do other things while the bot is going.
          With -n, you won&#39;t return to the shell prompt until the bot
          exits (which won&#39;t normally happen until it&#39;s killed). By
          default, -n will send all log entries to the console.</p>
        </dd>

        <dt><strong>-nt</strong></dt>

        <dd>
          <p>Don&#39;t background, use terminal. This is just like -n, except
          that instead of seeing log entries, your console will simulate a
          DCC chat with the bot.</p>
        </dd>

        <dt><strong>-nc</strong></dt>

        <dd>
          <p>Don&#39;t background, show channel info. This is just like -n,
          except that instead of seeing log entries, every 10 seconds your
          screen will clear and you will see the current channel status, sort
          of like &quot;top&quot;.</p>
        </dd>

        <dt><strong>-m</strong></dt>

        <dd>
          <p>Create userfile. If you don&#39;t have a userfile, this will
          make Eggdrop create one, and give master/owner status to the first
          person that introduces himself or herself to it. You&#39;ll need to
          do this when you first set up your bot, and never again.</p>
        </dd>

        <dt><strong>-v</strong></dt>

        <dd>
          <p>Show version info, then quit.</p>
        </dd>
      </dl>
    </blockquote>

    <p>Most people never use any of the options except -m, and you only need
    to use that once.</p>

    <p>It&#39;s <strong> STRONGLY</strong> recommended to run your bot from
    its own directory. That way upgrading to a new version is somewhat
    painless, and you won&#39;t have any troubles from language files and the
    like being in the wrong location. You can put your config file and user
    file in that directory, and then when you compile a new version of
    Eggdrop, you just have to do:</p>

    <blockquote>
      <p><em>make DEST=&quot;directory&quot; install</em></p>
    </blockquote>

    <p>and it will copy all the necessary files.</p>

    <p>The config file that comes with Eggdrop is called
    &quot;eggdrop.conf.dist&quot;. You need to copy this file to
    &quot;eggdrop.conf&quot; and edit that file and change almost everything.
    It specifies the bot&#39;s nickname, server list, and pretty much
    everything else about how your bot will work. You should also rename it
    from &quot;eggdrop.conf&quot; to something resembling your bot&#39;s
    name, for convenience. I call mine &quot;sisko&quot; since my bot is
    &quot;Sisko&quot;.</p>

    <p>You can execute the script to start the bot. For example, I use:</p>

    <blockquote>
      <p><em>chmod u+x sisko</em></p>
    </blockquote>

    <p>to make the &quot;sisko&quot; script executable. Then I edited the
    first line of the script to say:</p>

    <blockquote>
      <p><em> #!./eggdrop</em></p>
    </blockquote>

    <p>which tells the operating system which program to run when executing
    this script. (Obviously, it needs to run Eggdrop.) If you&#39;re too lazy
    to do this, or just don&#39;t feel like it, you can still start up your
    bot this way:</p>

    <blockquote>
      <p><em>eggdrop &lt;options&gt; &lt;config-file&gt;</em></p>
    </blockquote>

    <p>For example:</p>

    <blockquote>
      <em>eggdrop -nt sisko</em>
    </blockquote>

    <p>After you&#39;ve edited your config file and set the directories up
    the way you want them, start the bot with the -m option. That will make
    it create a user file. As soon as you&#39;ve started up the bot, you need
    to go to IRC and introduce yourself to the bot. Typically this is done by
    sending it the /msg &quot;hello&quot;, although many people change that
    greeting to something else (read the config file for more info about
    that).</p>

    <p>When started with the -m option, the first person to introduce
    themselves to the bot will become the master/owner. You want to be that
    person. Once you are recognized as the owner, you have full access to the
    commands and abilities of the bot.</p>
    <hr>

    <p><em>Copyright &copy; 1997 Robey Pointer<br>
     Copyright &copy; 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 <a href="http://www.eggheads.org/">
     Eggheads Development Team</a></em></p>
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